Late into last night and early this morning – two periods of darkness – I read Caroline Alexander’s The Bounty, the travels of Captain William Bligh and his misfortunes. She writes of the exquisite natural beauty of Tahiti, and about the chaos of Western men sailing on their rampage for vengeance, men sailing the seven seas, the seven deadly sins rioting through this story.

This evening, walking with my daughter in the early spring evening, the robins singing, I imagined how divine that virgin land must have been, with its contrasts of color and elevation, its welcoming inhabitants, the plethora of food. As a writer, I can’t help but admire the endless metaphorical possibilities….

Reading about the great strife and literal journeys of others deepens the geography of my own domestic Vermont life, reflecting my black sandy beaches. Greater misery of others doesn’t diminish the suffering of those in my world, but widens the landscape, per se, of what it means to be human.

… under cloudless skies and mild breezes…. the lush, dramatic peaks of Tahiti. Closer in, and the mountain cascades, the graceful palms, and the sparkling volcanic black beaches could be seen beyond thundering breakers and surf. The few ships that had anchored here had all attempted to describe the vision like beauty of the first sight of this island rising into view from the blue Pacific. Bligh had called Tahiti “the Paradise of the World.”

– Caroline Alexander, The Bounty: the True Story of the Mutiny on the Bounty

My Book

Follow this blog.

“With vivid and richly textured prose, Brett Ann Stanciu offers unsparing portraits of northern New England life well beyond sight of the ski lodges and postcard views. The work the land demands, the blood ties of family to the land, and to each other, the profound solitude that such hard-bitten lives thrusts upon the people, are here in true measure. A moving and evocative tale that will stay with you, Hidden View also provides one of the most compelling and honest rural woman’s viewpoint to come along in years. A novel of singular accomplishment.” – Jeffrey Lent

“Early in the book, I was swept by a certainty of truths in Hidden View: that Stanciu knew the bizarre and fragile construction that people’s self-deceptions can frame. And that she was telling, out in public, against all the rules, the heartbreaking story of far too many women I’ve known, at one time or another, who struggled to make their dreams come to reality in situations…. …(In Hidden View) the questions of loyalty to person, commitment to dreams, and betrayal of the helpless are as vivid as the flames in the sugarhouse, as sweet and dangerous as the hot boiling maple sap on its way to becoming valuable syrup. There’s so much truth in this book that at some point, it stops being “fiction” and stands instead as a portrait, layered, complex, and wise. The Vermont that we love, the farms that we treasure, the children we nurture are fully present.” – Kingdom Books, Beth Kanell

“Stanciu is a Vermonter’s ‬writer. Anyone who loves the landscape and language of Vermont will be ‬drawn into this story, but her writing holds a universal appeal, too, ‬and rings true with the language and landscape of the human heart and ‬mind as well. The characters in Hidden View are people you’re ‬going to think about, and care about, long after the book is read.” – Natalie Kinsey-Warnock, AS LONG AS THERE ARE MOUNTAINS

"Brett Stanciu writes with enviable poise and precision. Hidden View is a story that burrows deep and stays put. This is a powerful novel."
– Ben Hewitt, THE TOWN THAT FOOD SAVED and
HOME GROWN

"(Stanciu") combines her academic life with her agricultural life to write an enduring story… as rugged as the earth it is based on."
– Steve Pappas, The Barre-Montpelier Times-Argus, Vermont Sunday Magazine

"Stanciu is Vermont through and through. The same can be said of her first novel...”
– Seven Days

"Hidden View is pure authenticity. Every word rings true to this place and its people; I know; I've lived here for 45 years."
– David Budbill, JUDEVINE